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Based in Beaverton, Oregon, serving clients across Oregon and Washington, in person and online.
PSYCHOEDUCATION
Trauma
Trauma is often talked about as though you are now defined by what happened.
What happened to you
and how it affected you
are not the same thing
as who you are.
There are experiences that can overwhelm nearly anyone's ability to cope. Sexual, physical, or psychological abuse, serious accidents, disasters, combat, sudden loss, violence, or situations where someone's life or safety was threatened can all be traumatic experiences.
Understanding trauma also means looking at what happened inside the person who lived through it. We cannot judge the impact of an experience simply by "how bad it was." Trauma affects each of us uniquely. Two people can go through similar experiences and respond very differently. The impact can depend on age, previous experiences, relationships, internal coping resources available at the time, quality and amount of support, whether there was a way to escape or respond, how long the situation lasted, and what happened afterward.
Why does trauma happen?
Human beings are built to learn from danger.
When something feels threatening, the brain and body shift resources toward survival. Heart rate changes. Muscles tense. Attention narrows. The body prepares to fight, flee, freeze, shut down, comply, detach, or do whatever seems most likely to help the person get through what is happening.
These aren't consciously chosen strategies. They're responses from systems designed to help us survive situations where careful decision making may be too slow.
After a traumatic event, your brain may start "filing away" that a particular sound predicts danger or certain facial expressions mean something bad is coming.
The brain may begin to create rules to keep you safe:
Stay alert.
Don't call attention to yourself.
Make sure no one is upset because they could become a danger to you.
Those lessons don't necessarily disappear
when the original danger does.
What can trauma look like?
Trauma doesn't always look the way it does in movies. While flashbacks and nightmares can happen, trauma can also affect how someone thinks, feels, relates to other people and the world, experiences their body, and moves through everyday life.
This can include:
Feeling constantly alert
Avoidance
Changes in sleep
Intrusive experiences
Feeling numb or disconnected
Changes in emotions
Changes in thinking or focus
Changes in relationships
Trying to stay in control
People pleasing
Feeling uncomfortable when things are calm
Self-destructive behaviors
Negative beliefs about yourself or the world
Missing time or memories
Physical reactons
Not everyone who experiences trauma develops Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
Experiencing some of these reactions after something frightening or overwhelming does not automatically mean something has "gone wrong" or you're now "broken."
What happened,
what did you learn from it,
and what is your mind or body
still trying to protect you from?
When protection becomes a pattern
One of the confusing things about trauma is that behaviors that cause problems now may once have been extremely useful.
These behaviors served an important purpose.
They were trying to keep you safe
Consider a person who learned that conflict was dangerous. They may have become very good at noticing tiny changes in other people's moods. They may be able to anticipate what people need and, as a rule, avoid disagreement. They apologize quickly and may even become unusually skilled at keeping everyone around them comfortable.
In the past, that ability may have reduced danger and protected this person. However, years later, the same person may find themselves terrified of disappointing a partner, unable to tell a coworker no, or panicking when someone sends a text that says, "Can we talk?" The response can look confusing if we only look at the present moment. It looks different when we understand their history.
However, years later, the same person may find themselves terrified of disappointing a partner, unable to tell a coworker no, or panicking when someone sends a text that says, "Can we talk?"
Avoidance is similar.
If something reminds us of a painful or frightening experience, avoiding it can bring immediate relief. The brain notices that relief and learns: Good. We escaped the danger.
Good.
We escaped the danger.
Unfortunately, that can also prevent the brain from learning something new. That gap between what you know now and what your brain learned to do to protect you in the past can be an important part of understanding trauma.
How can therapy help?
Therapy doesn't have to begin with describing every detail of what happened. Often, it begins with understanding what is happening in the here-and-now. What situations seem to set off an alarm? What happens in your body when they do? What do you find yourself avoiding? What beliefs about yourself, other people, safety, control, responsibility, or trust developed around what happened? Which responses are still protecting you, and which ones may no longer fit the life you're living?
Therapy can help make those patterns more visible and less automatic.
Depending on the person and what they need, that might include learning ways to manage overwhelming physiological responses, approaching avoided experiences gradually, examining beliefs that developed around the trauma and seeing whether they still fit, understanding relationship patterns, making sense of emotions that have been difficult to name, or helping the brain distinguish between reminders of danger and danger itself.
Sometimes the work involves the past directly. Other times, it involves understanding how the past keeps appearing in the present.